


what if i'm the monster that's been here all along?

by Anonymous



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, Anti-Bullying Day 2021, Bullying, Challenges, Gen, High School, Pink Shirt Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:15:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29808279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: just a short challenge i participated in for anti-bullying day aka pink shirt day in canada.in which kara danvers witnesses bullying, is bullied, and stands up to bullying.
Kudos: 6
Collections: Anonymous





	what if i'm the monster that's been here all along?

**Author's Note:**

> this was rushed and i didn't even finish it before the challenge deadline, but i wanted to post it anyway, since i did write this instead of sleeping.
> 
> this was meant to be much longer, as you can probably tell by the weird rushed writing, but it was late, so i just wrapped it up as fast as i could...

Kara hates Earth.

It’s not that she has to learn to control her powers and abilities, hide the very part of her that makes her brilliant. It’s not because she’s not allowed to use said powers.

The people, the humans, are despicable.

She sees this first on TV, watches with clenched fists as a man named Lex Luthor slams her cousin into the ground. Superman’s veins glow an eerie green and so much crimson trickles from his head Kara’s nails break the couch covering and then the porcelain toilet bowl as she dry heaves over it.

When dust stops crumbling from where her fingers press into the toilet, she pricks her ears to find Superman’s heartbeat, to find her baby cousin’s heartbeat. He’s older than her now, and the thought makes a sob catch in her throat. She finds his feeble-but-steady heartbeat in seconds, but the sensory overload from lack of control has her retching into the toilet once more.

The bowl breaks under the pressure and water streams in rivulets to the tiled floor.

“Why did he do it?” she rasps shakily to her adoptive mother when her eyes dry.

“Some people are just bad, Kara. Lex, this man, he doesn’t like aliens.” Eliza says, holding the young girl in her arms. “But we’ll keep you safe. We won’t let Lex get to you.”

“Okay.” Kara doesn’t believe her fully but lets her eyes close anyway.

Guilt roars in her stomach.

Being an alien is bad, it seems.

Kara hates Earth.

* * *

It’s not as bad the second time, but it’s more real.

Kenny Li, the boy that brings butterflies to her stomach, smiles weakly at her from across the lunch table. It’s empty besides the two of them.

The skin around his left eye is black and purple, and she stares in horror.

“I’m okay, Kara.”

“No, you’re not!”

“It’s just a couple of bullies. It’s normal.”

“Bullies?”

He laughs softly. “Right. Sometimes I forget English is not your first language. You’re so good at it.”

She stiffens, but he continues with that same kind look on his face. It’s not a jab, like what those mean kids say when she forgets a word or has never heard a certain word. Kara remembers that Cantonese is Kenny’s first language, and she relaxes. He hadn’t come here until halfway through elementary school, and by then, it was too late to make many friends.

“Bullies are mean people who hurt people, both verbally and physically.”

“Why do they do it?” Kara thinks of Lex and Kal-El.

She doesn’t say anything about them.

He shrugs. “People are inherently bad.”

“That’s a negative view.”

“It is,” he agrees. “but humans like you and me,” Kara bites her tongue, “we’re all bad people. We just don’t choose to show it.”

Kara thinks of the time she flooded the bathroom by breaking the toilet, the time she broke Alex’s wrist because she reached out too fast. She remembers the time she broke rules and went flying even after her parents said she couldn’t.

She’s the reason her dad’s dead, after all.

“Oh.”

A group of well-muscled boys saunters over to their table, and Kara knows exactly what’s going to happen.

“Hello, Kenny Li,” one says smoothly, sliding onto the bench next to the scrawny boy.

“What do you want?” he says warily.

“For you to do my homework.”

“Do it yourself.”

Kara digs her nails into her palms, hard enough to crush human bones into nothing. Her hands remain unscathed besides the crescent indents in her palm.

“C’mon, nerd. I’ll let you sit with us at lunch.”

“I don’t want to.”

Kara shrinks into her skin as the bigger boy begins to say words she doesn’t recognize, but they’re spat with such poison and malice she flinches. They’re bad words.

Another boy grabs Kenny by the collar of his shirt, and Kara stands up.

“Hey! Let go of him! Don’t call him that!”

The apparent leader of the group mimics her in a high-pitched voice. Kara winces at the exaggerated accent; her Kryptonian accent always slips through when she’s agitated, and now is not an exception.

“Stop!”

“What are you gonna do about it?” someone sneers.

Kara walks around the table until she’s positioned beside Kenny. If any of them tries to hit him, she can block him, even if it means giving away her identity.

And it happens; she sees it before the punch is thrown. Muscles clench as a hand pulls back into a fist, and as it flies at Kenny’s stomach, her inhuman reflexes allow her to step just a little to the side and take the punch with her abdomen.

The owner of the fist grunts in pain as his knuckles bruise and quite possibly break. She glares at him, but for the sake of appearances, she stumbles backwards, clutching her side. The boy is cradling his fist to his chest.

“Dude, you just hit a girl,” someone whispers from the back of the group, and just then a teacher walks in.

The group scatters and skitters away as casually as they can. 

Kenny turns to Kara, horrified. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“He hit you.”

“Not that hard.”

“What do you mean?”

Kara pats the area where the punch had landed, pressing on it a few times. “See? I’m fine.”

He looks anxiously into her eyes. “You sure?”

She nods, and his head tips to the side and a look of understanding passes over his gaze. Acceptance.

_ He knows _ , is her first thought, but she rips her gaze away along with the thought and sits back down.

“Thank you for not just sitting there,” he says quietly.

“We can’t just be bystanders to… bullying if we are to defeat it. I wasn’t going to just let them hurt you.”

He doesn’t say anything else, but he nods gratefully.

Kenny dies a week later.

Kara hates Earth.

* * *

It’s a lot harder when she’s the main target.

And when the bully is her sister.

She’s known from the moment she arrived that Alex despises her.

For knowing her algebra homework so effortlessly, for being fast enough to take the bathroom in the morning, for being the center of their parents’ attention.

Alex always growls at her to stay away, always turns up metal music to full volume so that Kara is left curled up in bed with a pounding headache.

But it’s never come to this.

Alex snarls at her, hands gesturing animatedly as she points out everything Kara did wrong.

“Are you kidding me, Kara? Staring at the birds like some stupid child was bad enough, but then you had to go save that burning car? You don’t understand what I’m going through, Kara. You don’t know how much I struggle to make friends because I’m responsible for you. Mom always gets mad at me- me, not you, when something bad happens. When some kid breaks his hand punching you. 

“When will you understand that you’re nothing, Kara? You’re useless and stupid and worthless so, so selfish, and you’re ruining my life! I didn’t want a sister in the first place, okay? I didn’t ask for an alien like you to just barge into my life and ruin it. You broke my arm once. You break everything you touch! You’re a monster. 

“You think you’re smart because you know calculus, but you’re dumb. You don’t even know how to act around people. I’m sick of looking out for you. Mom and Dad- they- they don’t care about me because of you! You act like you’re so superior because you have powers and you know more things than me- you have no idea how terrible of a person you are. You pretend to be this lost girl from another planet. It’s pathetic.

“And you just decided that you can do anything and just- steal them away from me! You’ll never be my sister, Kara Zor-El.” Alex spits her last name like it’s venom like it’s just a foul taste in her mouth. “You’ll never be my family. Not until you stop acting like a stupid alien and be Kara Danvers.”

Tears, hot and fat, that have been pooling in her eyes finally roll down Kara’s flushed cheeks, blurring her vision. Her breath hitches as she chokes back a sob, her bottom lip trembling as she tries to say something, anything.

Kara hears Alex say something else, but her ears are ringing with words, bouncing around in her head like an echo of a gong.

_ Stupid. Useless. Worthless. So, so selfish. Dumb. You’ll never be my sister. Stupid. Useless. You’re ruining my life. Monster. Pathetic. _

Her eyes burn and the air seems to hum for a second before a sob bursts out and tears bleed down her cheeks. Only, blood rims her eyes, and when she blinks the tears away, her glasses are a misshapen lump on the floor, and there’s a smoking hole in the wall.

“I- I’m sorry,” Kara stutters, backing away. She collides with the kitchen counter, which cracks under her fingers.

_ I’m a monster. I’m pathetic. _

She flees to her room. A section wooden railing on the staircase cracks and falls to the ground upon contact, and tries to control her strength when she opens and closes the door, but it flies off the hinges and when she props it up against the frame with shaking hands, the doorknob is barely more than a misshapen lump of metal.

_ Monster. _

Her eyes burn with pain- she’s never used heat vision before- and the salty tears streaming down her face don’t help.

She looks down at her trembling fingers, watches as tears soundlessly drop onto her palm when she closes her eyes.

“I’m a monster,” she whispers to herself, voice shaky, breathing ragged. “I’m a monster.”

The taste of bitter salt lingers on her tongue long after her tears have dried.

Kara absolutely loathes Earth. She wonders if she could fly back to Krypton.

But it’s gone.

* * *

Kara doesn’t tell Eliza what happens, but it’s quite obvious by the unhinged door and burn marks in the wall, not to mention the broken counter and railing.

She can hear her adoptive mother berating Alex through the wall, and she closes her eyes as guilt overwhelms her. Alex is going to hate her for this. It’s like a positive feedback loop. It’s going to happen again if she doesn’t do anything about it.

So she makes a split-second decision when she hears Eliza retreat downstairs.

She knocks on Alex’s room door hesitantly, careful not to punch straight through the door.

“Who is it?”

She takes a deep breath. “It’s Kara.”

“Come to gloat? Mom grounded me for two weeks, though, I’m sure you were eavesdropping.”

“No,” she says quietly.

“Then what do you want?” Alex sounds frustrated.

Kara opens the door gently. “To apologize.”

Her sister looks at her warily, and the young Kryptonian takes her silence as an invitation to continue.

“I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry if I made you lose any friends, or got Eliza mad at you when it was my fault. I’m sorry for breaking your arm last year, and for acting like a complete idiot at the beach. I’m sorry if I’m not the sister you wanted.”

Alex opens her mouth to speak, but Kara interrupts. “No. Let me say this.”

“I’m sorry I ruined your life. You’re right. I don’t know what you’re going through, or what you feel. But you don’t know me either, Alex. You don’t know what it feels like to be an alien in a world of humans. You don’t know what it’s like to have to try to blend in when every part of you is different.” 

Kara takes a shaky breath. “You don’t know how hard it is to try to speak without a Kryptonian accent. It took me two months to learn English, and even now, I don’t know everything you do. You don’t know how hard it is to control my powers and not break everything I touch.”

“Kara-”

“No. Let me finish. You- you don’t know what it was like for me in that pod, trapped for 24 years with nothing but silence. It was so quiet, Alex.” Her voice trembles. “It was so, so quiet. and Krypton, it’s gone. I lost my home. I lost my family, my friends, my entire world. You don’t know what it’s like when I wake up from nightmares that I’m in that pod again, trapped in that stupid pod. You- you don’t know what it’s like to lose everything and have to start over, or- or restrain myself.”

She’s crying now, tears streaking soundlessly down her face, but she keeps going.

“You don’t know what it’s like to dream or think in a language no one in existence speaks! You don’t know what it’s like to know you’ll never see anyone you love ever again!

“So why, Alex? Why do you hate me so much? What makes you think I’m a useless, pathetic, stupid, selfish, worthless, monster? You don’t know me. Why- why do you treat me like this? It hurts, that someone who's supposed to love me and care for me just hurts me. And for what reason?”

She takes a deep shuddering breath. It feels like a weight has been lifted off her chest, and she’s prepared for Alex to scream at her some more, but she looks up and is surprised to find Alex crying as well.

The older Danvers shakes her head and opens her mouth to reply, but nothing comes out.

Kara shifts her feet.

“I’m sorry,” Alex finally manages, and Kara looks up from fidgeting with her fingers. “I- I didn’t know- I didn’t even think- I wasn’t thinking. I’m so sorry, Kara. I didn’t mean it, I promise. I was just- so mad because Dad’s d- gone and Mom’s all I have left, but she’s always mad at me. And I suppose it is my fault because you’re new here. You're my sister.”

The blonde smiles weakly. “I could have tried harder.”

“You’re right, I don’t know you at all. But… maybe we can change that?” Alex ventures. “I’m sorry. I swear I am.”

Kara nods and sniffles. “Yeah, that’d- that’d be amazing.”

Alex drags her wrist over her eyes. “I’m sorry, Kara.”

“Thank you.”

Kara hates Earth a little less.

* * *

Kara knows bullying. She’s heard blatant anti-alien talk at school, on the streets; it’s hard not to catch it with her super hearing. She’s seen others get bullied, get targeted for their differences.

As Supergirl, her goal is to stop crime, to protect National City and the world. Bullying doesn’t always fall under that spectrum, but it’s still a crime, and she’s out there to prevent it the best she can.

Supergirl is on patrol when the slight increase of a heart rate and a flash of red and blue catch her eyes. She pricks her ears, and listens to the exchange between the young children.

“So you think you’re Supergirl? If I shoved you, could you fly?”

The sound of laughter has Supergirl clenching her fists, floating a bit closer in preparation.

“You look so stupid.”

“No, I don’t!” There’s a little girl wearing a Supergirl shirt, and Kara’s heart swells at the little show of defiance, even if her jaw is clenched in rage.

“Everybody thinks so. That’s why you don’t have any friends.”

That’s it for Kara. She knows what it’s like to not have friends, to be alone, and so she zooms towards the girls and lands elegantly, hands on her hips.

“I wouldn’t say that.”

The bullies shrink back a little, and Supergirl smiles.

She turns to the girl and discreetly squints through her backpack to glance at the name beautifully written across all her worksheets. “I actually think you look pretty awesome, Laura.”

The girl beams at her. “Thanks.”

“You know Supergirl?” One of the bullies stammers.

“Yeah, I’m friends with all the nice girls,” Supergirl says.

Before she takes off, she takes Laura to the side and gives her a gentle hug.

“Bullies are just trying to bring you down, okay? They have to pull you down because they’re below you. Remember that, Laura. The good girls are the ones who stay nice.”

Laura nods vigorously, and her eyes twinkle with joy. “Thank you, Supergirl.”

“No,” Kara smiles, and stands up, ready to take off. “Thank you. See you!”

And with that, she pushes off into the sky.

She hovers a hundred feet above, out of sight, but watches fondly as Laura smiles to herself and then confidently goes to talk to the girls who had bullied her.

Kara still dislikes Earth for the hatred that lies hidden, but maybe it’s a little better before

She is called off to blow out a fire when the comms in her ear go off, but she can’t hide her beaming smile knowing that even if it’s bad, there are people out there who will stand alongside her to rid the world of hate and make a change.


End file.
